The Boy Next Door

Copyright (C) 1989 Bradley D. Clymer.  All Rights Reserved.

* A Stranger Approaches *

Dan was a year younger than myself, and in my sister's class at
school.  It was a small rural school, with all K-12 grades in the same
building.  Everyone in the school knew most of the other families,
because the same families have lived there forever.  The Williams, the
Bracys, the Powells, the Basingers, the Clymers, the Ferrells, the
Cramers, the Reeses, the Shanks, the Schumachers, the Myers, the
Liebs, the Wagners...  these families had moved to Findlay when the
Northwest Ohio region was originally se ttled.  Many of the ancestors
had moved to Hancock County from the Lancaster, Pennsylvania
area---`Pennsylvania Dutch'. The towns surrounding Findlay bear
distinctive Germanic names, like Jenera, Leipsic, Deshler, etc.  The
people there are simple, hardworking family-oriented folks that tend
to close-in together when crisis hits.

My first memory of Dan was on a spring afternoon when I was about 14.
I was pruning a rosebush that I had started from a shoot a few years
earlier.  The rosebush had barely survived the winter, and was
destined for a horrible death at the hands of the inexperienced
gardner that I was. Dan had just moved into the neighborhood.  A
neighborhood that was growing quickly out of the cornfields that had
once been all I could see from the livingroom window in my parents
house.  A growth that I had welcomed and rej ected at the same time.

I had known of Dan before, because he was in my sister's class at
school, but since had he lived on the other side of the school
district and, distances being large for a 14 year-old's means of
transportation, I knew very little about him.  I didn't hear him
approach.  He just appeared.  I had been working on the rosebush in
the back yard next to the old chicken coop that my Dad had converted
to a utility shed.  There he stood with his shorts, a T-shirt and a
football.

"Want to pass a few?" he asked.

"I'm not very good," was my reply.  My little sister was the athlete
in the family.  She was the one who incessantly shot baskets at the
hoop in our driveway.  She was the one who could throw a football the
farthest and hit a baseball the longest.  I refused (and still do) to
even touch a basketball, but football I could handle if we played
tackle, because I was bigger than most of the boys my age.

We threw a few passes...I dropped the ones that he threw right on
target and the ones I threw were no where near him.  But he was very
patient with me.  After 20 minutes or so, my sister, Anita, came home
and came out to join us.  With Anita as a third player we could run
pass patterns with a defender, and I grateful chose to be the
defender. I had demonstrated an affinity for batting down footballs
when I had been trying to catch them.

After we played for an hour or so, Dan invited us over to his house
for pop and snacks.  I was in awe of his new house.  My house was 15
years old, and had been built by my dad for the most part.  It was so
*average* to me.  But Dan's house had just been built.  And the pool
in the back was just about completed.  A neighbor with a pool was
something I couldn't fathom.  Swimming to me had always been the trip
to my great aunt's house in town and the large pool in the nearby
park, or a trip to one of the lime stone quarries that had filled with
spring water become a lake.

Dan's parents each ran drive-in rootbeer stands.  The American
Graffiti type, where cars pull up under a large awning and carhops
come out to take your order and later bring your food on a tray that
hangs from your window.  As a consequence, Dan and his brother and
sisters were left under the supervision of his oldest sister for much
of the time from mid April to the end of October.  During the winter
months, however, his parents were there around the clock.  It was an
unusual arrangements, but one that is not without merits.

That first spring and summer we would play football or baseball until
we could drop from exhaustion, then went to the pool to cool off.  Our
yard was about the size of a football field and quickly became the
neighborhood playground, and Dan's pool was the fitting end to the
daily games.  Somedays it would be everyone in the neighborhood and
other times it would be just Dan and I.  We became very close.  We
spent nearly every waking hour together until we were old enough to
get jobs.

* Just Between Friends *

That summer was one of learning.  A delightful sequence of exchanging
the types of activities that we each had come to enjoy on our own.  It
was Dan who tried teaching me how to hunt.  Among his many natural
gifts were the steady hand and keen sight made him a natural hunter.
He would spot rabbits or squirrels and spend long minutes trying to
point them out to me so that I could get a first shot sometimes.
Usually by the time I had seen the prey, it would vanish.  I had a
hunch that letting me have the fi rst shot often was Dan's way of
protecting wildlife.  Later, I would give up hunting all together, and
the prestige that comes to Ohio farmboys for killing innocent rodents
with rifles and shotguns soon became hollow to Dan as well. Eventually
he would turn to hunting with bow and arrow.  This was much more
challenging for him, and better in line with the philosophy that he
was developing for his life.  I always imagined him as being like the
Dustin Hoffman character in "L ittle Big Man".  Someone who was b orn
into a "civilized" society, but who would be much more comfortable
just being around nature and living directly at the hands of God.

The things that I brought to the sharing were times of quiet
togetherness. Just spending time together, without doing anything in
particular.  We would sit on the front porch and talk while we watched
traffic go by.  Unlike the other boys our age, we seldom talked about
the girls in our classes or dating, but just about whatever was on our
minds at the time.  We would dream of the ideal lives to live.  What
kind of cars we would own when we were old enough.

It was that first summer that we would often get together at Dan's
house with my sister, Anita, Dan's brother Kelly, and his sisters
Darlene and Terri. Usually we would all go swimming and make a pizza
for dinner from a Chef Boy-Ardee mix.  With Dan's parents working,
Terri was in charge, and we would often tease her about doing things
we weren't allowed to do. Sometimes after dinner, we would get
together a another neighbor's house and play Hide-and-Seek in the
entire neighborhood.  Home base was the Giant Oak tree in the Treece's
side yard.  Hide-and-Seek was not a children's game in our
neighborhood.  The kids that played ranged in ages from 10 to 18.  It
was a game of cunning strategies and misdirection.

Late in the evenings, often, Dan would be at my house or I would be at
his, watching the Tonight Show on television.  As often as not, we
would end up staying overnight, rather than walk across the road home.

I can't remember whose idea it was, but the following summer we both
joined the local 4-H club.  Projects that we chose were insignificant.
We had come to the point of everything one did, the other did as well.
The highlight of summer that year was a camping trip that the 4-H club
made to Angola, Indiana. Outside of church camp, it was the first time
I had spent a week without my family.  For Dan, it was a new adventure
as well.  We learned to canoe on the lake.  After being around muddy
rivers and farm p onds, I was fascinated by how clear the water was in
the lake.

Lake St. James was more of a line of smaller lakes, with channels
lined with reeds connecting the smaller areas.  A canoe could easily
pass through the reeds to the next pool, but power boats could not. As
a consequence, most of the people on the lake were found in the
central section near the lodge house and the launching ramps.

We spent nearly the entire week exploring the "untamed waters of Lake
St.  James," pretending we were Indians before the presence of
settlers, or explorers like Rogers and Clark.  Dan made a natural
Indian.  He was naturally dark, with raven black hair.  He had an
absolutely hairless face and body, and the stealth and cunning of his
movement convinced me that he was born into the wrong civilization and
the wrong time.  Sometimes the other students would tease him about
looking like the mexican farm worker s that would come to the area in
the summers to help pick tomatos and pickles.  Dan shrugged it off as
jealousy, and continued without comment.  The only connection that
could mark him as a descendent of one of the old families was the ice
blue of his eyes.  A blue that shown like fire from the golden brown
of his face.

By the last full day we had left on the trip, we had found secluded
pools in the reeds that were suitable for swimming.  The first time we
had discovered the pools, we were with friends, and between about 4
canoes and 8 boys, we had played at attacking each others canoes and
capsizing them. That first day we all ended up soaked with dripping
shoes and clothes.  But the last day, Dan and I were alone.  We
decided to spare our clothes, and stripped to go swimming. I was the
first one in. I had never been swim ming without my suit before, and
the rush of the water between my legs was a wonderful sensation as I
treaded water waiting for Dan to jump in from the canoe.  At that
point, we learned an amazing fact about Newton's laws of motion and
jumping out of a canoe.  When I had jumped, Dan was in the canoe and
his weight had stabilized the canoe during the jump.  But when Dan
jumped, there was nothing but the canoe itself, and the contents of
the canoe were dumped into the lake as he jumped.  Quickly, we grabbed
s neakers and shorts and tossed them back into the canoe.  So much for
sparing the clothes.

We spent the hour wrestling and dunking each other in between rests
hanging onto the side of the canoe.  During one of the particularly
vigorous wrestling bouts, we locked in an embrace facing each other
and noticed the inevitible swelling of body parts that were placed
between us.  It was a moment and it passed when Dan challenged a race
to the other side of the pool and back. It was a close race, but when
he got to the canoe, he hauled himself up the side and began dressing.
I followed suit, and soon we were paddling back to the center pool of
the lake.  We hiked barefoot back to the campsite to find that some of
the boys had begun to cook supper.  The club advisor, a wise man on
crutches, disabled by polio when he was in high school, was courting a
campfire.

`The secret to starting a fire is to make a chimney out of the wood,
so that the hot air drafts up the chimney and fresh oxygen is pulled
in a the bottom to feed the flames,' he told us as we sat on an old
log next to the fire. Wayne had been in my Dad's class at school and
loved to tell us the stories of the devilish pranks our parents played
when they were our age.  Soon, the fire was blazing, and it felt good
as it dried the soaked shorts we were wearing.  It was just twilight,
and when I stole a glance at Dan's face, the campfire danced in ice of
his eyes.  The auburns of the sunset fading and the campfire flames
gave his face a golden glow.

* Things That Go Bump in the Night *

I awoke the next morning feeling uncertain if it had really happened
or if it had been a dream.  That's what we had pretended while it was
happening -- that we had been asleep.  It had started when I had
rolled over in the night and the edge of my forearm brushed against
Dan's. I had not been able to sleep, but had tried to convince myself
that lying there with my eyes closed was the same as sleeping.  The
events of the day raced through my mind.

I listened to the breathing of the rest of the boys in the tent,
rhythmically restoring the energies expended during the day.  I tried
to imitate the same patterns.  Maybe I could fall asleep if I tricked
my body into thinking it was already asleep.  I didn't want Dan to
know that I was so excited about what had happened at the lake.  He
seemed to be asleep, but a restless sleep.

As I lay there, trying to convince myself that I was asleep, Dan
rolled over onto his side.  There he curled with face resting on his
hands and my hand nearly touching the source of the swelling I had
known in the lake that afternoon.  I concentrated all of my
consciousness into not allowing my hand to move.  If I touched him, I
would wake him.  I just lay there frozen, trying to imitate the
breathing of the others around me.  Others in the tent. If I touched
him, he would wake up knowing what I had done, a nd think I was queer.
He might do something that would wake everyone else, and the whole
world would know what I had done.

So I didn't move.  I just kept breathing. Loudly.  "If I'm snoring, I
must be asleep," I told myself.  At least if anything did happen, I
could contend that I had been asleep.  It was a dream.  I was't
responsible.  I was dreaming about some playboy bunny that all of the
other boys seemed to drool over.

As I was planning my defense, I noticed that even though my hand
hadn't moved, suddenly it was touching Dan's shorts.  Just as I
realized that my wildest fantasy was true, that Dan was lying there
aroused next to me within my touch, he stirred.

At first I panicked as he started to move.  That was it.  I was
ruined.  Dan was going to wake up with my hand touching him like this,
and the whole dream defense was all I had left to rely on.  But,
although his breathing changed as he stirred, he wasn't waking.

He started to roll over.  My moment of ecstasy and panic would be
ended. He would turn the other direction, and it would be just another
moment, like the one in the lake, but this time Dan wouldn't even know
it had happened.

But he didn't roll away.  He rolled over onto his stomach.  With my
hand trapped underneath him.  Again I panicked.  What if someone else
in the tent saw us like this? I checked the breathing.  The steady
rhythm of the three other boys reassured me.  I was safe.  I was
having the fantasy of my life.  Nobody would know it, but I was safe
at least.  The beautiful body of my best friend lay next to me.  His
weight pressed him firmly into the palm of my trapped hand, and I was
awed at the opportunity of holding the bulge that had so fascinated me
in the past year.

Again he stirred.  Panic again.  He would wake again to my certain
doom.

But this time, he simply drew in his knee so that his hip toward me
was raised slightly, releasing the pressure on my hand.  I could draw
my hand back now.  Maybe that was a cue from him: "You've had your
jollies, now let me get back to sleep." I was torn between different
courses of action.  I knew I should withdraw my hand.  I had courted
disaster long enough.  Surely if I let this go on too long, I would be
discovered.  It had to be close to sunrise by now.  How long could the
night be? What if someone woke up and had to go out to take a piss?
They would have to step right over us to get to the door of the tent.

I knew I shouldn't but I couldn't help it.  I started to stroke the
bulge through the trim white undershorts.  It was Dan's last pair of
clean shorts. The afternoon at the lake had seen to that.  One more
day of camping to go, and he had only counted one pair a day.  I
remember him commenting about it when we went to the tent to change
before dinner.

But it was too enticing.  I moved my hand the slightest amount I could
manage. The soft of the cotton seemed so supple with Dan pressing
against it like that. I gently moved farther, and reversed the
direction, running my finger along the length of the bulge.

I checked his breathing.  Was he still asleep? Did I wake him? His
breathing was just as regular as the others.  I continued to gently
run my fingers along the length of the bulge.  Slowly.  Barely
touching him.  Any pressure or sudden motion might wake him.

I continued for a few minutes.  He stirred again.  No more panic.  It
was too late.  I had committed myself now.  It was the dream defense
or nothing. But he only adjusted himself slightly pulling his knee up
a little higher so that he faced me more.

My hand had more room now.  I continue the secretive massage, while
looking for signs of consciousness in Dan's face.  A gentle smile
radiated from the face.  Not a grin.  Not a laugh.  Just a smile.
Utopia.  Maybe he was dreaming that this whole thing was happening to
him.

I continued as I watched him.  His breathing grew louder, but kept its
steady beat.  Just a few seconds after his breathing had started to
change, he erupted.  I watched the cotton-soft bulge soak itself and I
stopped in amazement.  Dan's breathing grew quiet, but steady.  I had
to concentrate to hear him.  I didn't want to move.  This moment, I
would remember forever. but it would be just a dream to Dan.  It was
just as well.  If he had been awake, he might think I was a fag or
something.  I might never se e him again.

We both lay still.  It was as if time were frozen for us.  An endless
moment passed while I decided that it had been OK.  I had lived a
fantasy, and no one was the worse for it.

Dan stirred again.  What if he had to go to the bathroom? I always did
after I had jerked off.  I quickly pulled my hand back and returned to
the procedure of trying to fall asleep.

Minutes passed.  I imitated the steady breathing sounds around me.
Surely dawn would come soon.

I rolled over to my side, facing Dan.  The good old fetal position. If
I could ever fall asleep, this would have to do it.  Again, I copied
the sounds in the tent around me.  Minutes passed that seemed like
hours.

Dan stirred again.  Probably another dream.  I wondered who it
featured this time.  He rolled again, this time onto his stomach, but
adjusting his arms so that his fingertips where less than an inch from
the front of my shorts.

My God.  Another fantasy.  I thought about my breathing.  "Match the
sounds around me," I told myself.  This is too good to be true.  In a
flash, I felt the blood rush into the front of my shorts.  They were
my last pair too. Had Dan really been asleep? Was this his way of
saying "me too?" What if it had been just coincidental.  I took a deep
breath and released it in time with the others in the tent.  I could
bear it no longer.  I rolled over and adjusted my knee in the same
manner Dan had so that the top side of his fingers just brushed my
shorts.  I tried to pretend I was asleep.  "I sleep in this position
all the time," I told myself. Usually without my best friend's hand on
my crotch, though.

"Make your breaths even.  Nice long, slow steady gathering and
releasing. Don't let anyone know I'm awake in case someone gets up," I
told myself. Dan's hand twitched.  A dart of joy flashed through my
head.  He had been awake. He had been feeling the same things.

His hand began to move along my underwear.  He was echoing everything
that I had done just minutes before.  Should I act like I was waking
up so that we could acknowledge what was happening? It seemed so silly
to pretend when we both knew what was going on.  But what if someone
else woke up? I decided it was safer to pretend for now.

Steady breathing.  Now I had a lot more respect for Dan's acting
ability.  To be able to fake a normal breathing pattern when being
stroked like this was enough to win an Oscar.  "Listen to the others.
Inhale with Mike.  Exhale. Match the others." My heart pounded.  My
head screamed inside.  This would be a great way to torture someone, I
thought.

At last I exploded.  A gasp found its way out before I could catch it.
I choked it off immediately.  Rich stirred and Dan and I both froze. I
peeked through my eyelids to look at Dan's face.  His eyes were open.
He had given up the sleeping facade some time ago, it seemed. I opened
my eyes to acknowledge that I too was prepared to deal with this
however it turned out.  There was a bit of panic in Dan's eyes, but he
tried to be calm.  Rich's breathing resumed its normal pattern.

"Do you need to go outside?" Dan whispered to me.

I nodded.  

"You first.  I don't want both of us to go out together.  That might
draw attention," he told me.

I couldn't believe it.  He was a year younger than me, and he was in
such control of the situation.  I grabbed a pair of cut-off jeans and
left the tent to relieve myself.  Afterward, I took off my underwear,
wiped myself off with a dry portion, and put on my cut-offs.  I stole
back into the tent to see Dan lying there pretending sleep again. When
I lay down next to him on my sleeping bag, he winked at me.  He drew
closer and whispered, "Clever idea with the shorts.  I was expecting I
would have to wait fo r the air to dry me." After a few minutes, he
pretended to wake up, grabbed some gym shorts and left the tent to
relieve himself.  When he came back to the tent I returned his wink
with a grin, and we both fell soundly asleep.

* Behind the Eight Ball *

Although the events of the camping trip were not forgotten, we hadn't
had much of an urge to discuss them.  We hadn't had much of an
opportunity either, and secretly we were each probably grateful for
being busy.  I had begun my first job outside my grandfather's farm
and Dan had been spending alot of time visiting his cousin Todd in
Pandora, being too young to work legally outside the family business
and too young to be considered useful at his father's rootbeer stand
in Findlay.  The neighborhood had been abandoned by boys our age, and
Dan soon tired of teasing my sister Anita and our neighbor Debra and
began spending more time at his cousin Todd's house in Pandora.

I had jumped at the chance for my first job, detassling corn for
hybrid seed at a neighboring farm.  I had heard the wonderful and
legendary stories from some of the older boys in the neighborhood that
had worked in the past on large farms north of Findlay in the North
Baltimore and Deshler areas, but I had no way to get into Findlay to
catch the bus that took them to the farm, so I located a farm close
enough to bicycle to work.  Detassling was magically immune from the
minimum age laws for working, and 14 - 15 year olds could make
$2.95/hr for 3 or 4 weeks during the summer when the tassles on the
corn were beginning to shoot.  Dan had no interest in the endeavor,
but I assumed it would be similar to the work I had done for my
grandfather in his soybean fields cutting weeds.  And for much higher
wages.  I could only imagine what I would do with the earnings at the
end of the summer.

The work turned out to be disgustingly dirty and although we didn't
actually work in the rain, walking through the mud and wet pollen
after a rain was worse.  In spite of the fact that I wore a raincoat,
I found myself caked with mud and pollen for the duration.  Showering
helped clean the mud, but the pollen was impossible to remove from my
pores and hair.  I imagine now that my usual summer blond hair was
even more yellow than normal that particular year.

It was a particularly hot day near the end of July.  It had rained for
3 days, but on that particular day it was just muggy and wet.  At the
end of each length of the field when we turned around, I scraped about
5 pounds of mud from my workboots, then promptly began gathering more
as we made our way back.  No one was much in the mood for talking,
although the banter back and forth in the field was usually the sole
means of surviving the monotony of field work.  At the end of the day,
I moped home on my bicy cle, just wanting to collapse after my shower.
As I turned the corner where Dan's house stood, I heard a splash in
the back behind the big fence.  Dan was home today.

Suddenly, I had more energy.  I raced through my shower, put on my new
Speedos and nearly ran across the road to Dan's.  When I got there,
Dan and his cousin Todd had just come out of the pool and were putting
on their shorts.  They had been skinny dipping, and immediately I felt
the jealousy rising inside me. I had met Todd a few years back, and at
that time he had been a little chubby boy that seemed sort of
knowledgable for someone his age.  Now Todd was taller than me, sleek
and blond and I was beginnin g to understand why Dan had been spending
so much time with Todd.

Todd winked as I approached them.  Did he know? What was going on
here, anyhow. Dan suggested we go inside to play some pool.  Pool was
a frustrating game for me where Dan was involved.  I immediately could
see angles for shots and invariably would strike the cue ball too hard
and miss the center of my target or cause the cue ball to follow the
target into the pocket.  Part of my problem, I rationalized, was the
difference between my pool table and Dan's.  The pool table at my
house had been given to my Dad , who thought it would be a good thing
to put in the rec room in the basement to keep the kids occupied.  It
was really in poor shape.  It had no slate under the tabletop to keep
it flat and so the surface under the felt was very warped.  Just to
keep a ball rolling straight on that table took a considerable strike.
Dan's table was exactly the opposite.  A plush maroon felt covered a 1
inch slate surrounded by supple bumpers.  A ball would glide silently
along a magical path and gently kiss the cushions at the edge.

The pool table was in a rec room in Dan's basement and after the swim,
Dan and Todd were a little chilled, so they put on T shirts and socks
to play.  We played one game splitting the range of 15 balls into
three groups of 5, so that everyone could play on even terms, but it
wasn't much of a contest.  Dan was much better at the game than either
Todd or I. The skilled eye and hands of the hunter seemed to prevail
here as well.

Todd racked the balls on the table for a new game and coyly looked up
through the tuft of blond on his forehead.

"Want to make the game interesting?" he offered.

Dan grinned.  In the subdued lighting of the basement, his eyes and
smile were highlighted against his tawny skin and raven hair.

"What did you have in mind?" he answered.

I stood frozen, considering what was about to happen.  I could tell
Todd wasn't about to suggest a simple game of eight ball, just by the
interaction between him and Dan.  They both had the look of a con team
about to make a hit on innocent prey.

"How about if everytime we scratch, we have to take off a piece of
clothing," Todd said.

My mind raced.  I had scratched on half the shots I'd taken in the
first game. I hadn't brought a T-shirt, and I only was wearing my
Speedos under my cutoffs.

"We're not wearing much.  The game could be over pretty fast." Dan
looked at me with a sinister grin.

"I know a way to make it even more interesting," he said.  "Let's play
another game like the last one except with the rule on scratches, and
the loser has to provide a `service of choice' to the other two
players."

"What `service of choice,' " I asked, feigning naivitee.

"The loser has to do ANYTHING the other two want."

So there were two games in one here.  The amount of clothing one had
at the end of the game was simply a matter of not scratching.  But the
grand prize came from the outcome of the actual game itself.  Dan
loved wagers.  He enjoyed playing pool for money with friends in the
basement, when his parents weren't there.  He of course would clean us
all out of our spending money in no time.

Dan broke, because he had won the first game.  He proceeded to sink
the 1 and 3 balls.

"I always did like low balls," he said.

Todd went next.  He quickly pocketed the 15.  

"You can have the small ones, I've got the big ones," he said with a
grin.

His next shot was a scratch. He shrugged and took off a sock.

My turn.  I had 6 - 10 by default.  None of these, of course, was
lying in a position for an easy shot, so I had to be daring.  The 7
lay about halfway to one of the side pockets, at an interesting angle.
It would be difficult to sink without scratching, but it was my best
shot.

"Stroke gently," I told myself.  Let the cue push evenly.  I took a
deep breath, and released my stroke with my breath.  The cue ball
glided across the table to the 7 and hit just where I'd aimed and fell
decidedly into the side pocket.  I nervously watched the progress of
the cue ball as it rolled toward the corner pocket.  I relaxed.  The
angle was wrong.  It wouldn't fall into the pocket. But it did bump
Todd's 11 ball close to the corner pocket just enough that the 11
rolled to the edge of the pocket and teetered on the brink.  Then it
fell.

That, of course, presented a problem we had not defined before the
game.

"Isn't that considered a scratch?" Todd asked.

"I don't think so," Dan replied.  "He isn't wearing much, let's say it
isn't."

After further discussion, we decided that I could continue my turn
even though I had sunk Todd's ball, because I had made one of my own
as well.

Now the cue ball was in an easy position for the 6, and I took it
without effort. The cue ball tapped against the 9 and arranged it for
an easy shot that I harvested as well.  But that was my net for that
turn --- 3 for me and one for Todd.  Not bad.  I found myself leading
at the end of the first turn with no loss in clothing.

Dan's turn again, and he pocketed one more, giving him a total of
three. Todd scratched on his turn and took off his other sock.

My turn again.  Impossible shots again.  Todd had managed to mess up a
perfect shot for me just before he scratched.  I decided to be
conservative, being tied for the lead, and barely brushed the 10.
Nothing fell, and it was Dan's turn.

The fortunate equalizer in pool is that if one person has only 2 balls
left on the table and the opponents are far behind, there are alot of
enemy targets and not many good shots of your own.  Dan was in this
position.  He chose to shoot at one of Todd's balls to make it more
difficult for Todd.  He forfeited his turn in the process, because we
didn't strike one of his own first.

"That's dirty pool!" said Todd with his ever-present grin.  And of
course it was.

Todd took a difficult shot and missed, scratching for the third time
in the process.  As I looked at him, he winked again and took off his
T shirt. Was he doing this on purpose? He only had his gym shorts
left, because he hadn't put on underwear after swimming.

It was my shot again.  The cue ball was resting on the edge of the
table over by where Todd was standing.  I walked around the table,
bent over to sight my shot and drew my cue stick slowly back to shoot.
The stick softly stopped as if the end struck something padded.  I
glanced under my left elbow to see what I'd hit, and Todd was standing
there grinning.  He pointed to just above the the bulge in his shorts
and winked again.  I looked at Dan, who pretended to ignore this whole
scene.  I looked back at To dd, and he moved to the side so that I
could shoot.

I took my shot and ended up sinking both my target and the cue ball.
My cutoffs had to come off, and I had to put the ball I sank back on
the table.  While I unzipped my shorts, Todd stood across the table
rocking back and forth on his heels and toes, straddling his cue stick
like a stick pony.  The bulge in his short seemed bigger now.  I was
obviously excited, as was evident in my Speedos.

Dan sank another, leaving him only one to go, then it was Todd's turn,
and he banked the cue ball to pocket one for him.

I managed to get the one I'd had for a fleeting second the last turn.

So we all stood with one left apiece.  Dan tried a difficult shot and
came close, but missed as his ball bounced off the corner of the
pocket.

Todd sank his last ball and prepared to celebrate until Dan pointed to
the cue ball as it crept toward the corner pocket.  It rolled to the
edge and plunked in, and Todd's elation was softened considerably.
Dashed from victory to losing the shirt off his back.  Or more
correctly, the shorts off his backside.

Suddenly, Todd became timid.  He had been nonchanlant about skinny
dipping, but seemed hesitant now.

"They were your rules," Dan said, with a glint in his eye.

Todd swallowed a deep breath and pushed his shorts to his ankles and
stepped out of them.

His emotions may have been softened, but other parts of him certainly
hadn't. Now I understood the embarrassment at losing his shorts.  He
blushed and tried to hide by standing next to the pool table.  Of
course, this didn't really work, because the top of the table was too
low.  Part of him peeked up over the edge as if to look at the action
on the maroon arena.

"Your turn," Dan told me, trying to ease Todd's attention and
embarrassment. Dan acted as if he saw this every day.  Maybe he did.
They had been spending alot of time together lately.

I couldn't concentrate on the game any more.  I was captivated by the
naked and erect replica of the Statue of David standing next to the
pool table.  I was fortunate to even make contact with my ball on the
table.  I brushed it, but my target and the cue ball rolled harmlessly
to a stop.

Dan made an unceremonious finish to the game by effortlessly sinking
his last ball, and the game was over.  Dan had won and left Todd and I
tied for second. We hadn't anticipated this outcome.  Did this mean
that we both owed Dan a "favor?"

A door upstairs opened and closed.  Footsteps walked along the hall
above us. Someone was home.

"Todd...Dan?" It was Todd's mom.  She had come to pick him up.

Todd dove for the stack of clothes, grabbed his shorts and hauled them
on. I put my cutoffs back on.  Even though it would have been fine to
be playing pool in my swimsuit, I was showing a significant degree of
arousal at the sight of Todd.

Dan turned on the TV, and Todd, Dan and I sat on the couch watching
Beverly Hillbillies reruns.  Todd held a pillow on his lap.  Dan was
enormously delighted in the closeness of the call.

"What are you boys doing inside on a day like today?" Todd's mom
asked.

"We were getting sunburned in the pool, so we came in for a while,"
Dan replied.

A grateful look shot from Todd eyes.  Yeah, we almost got burned bad.

"It's 4 o'clock, Todd.  We have to go so that we can make it home and
I can start supper.  Get your things."

As Todd stood up, I glanced to see the state of his arousal.  The
panic of being caught had quenched his erection, and he quickly
gathered his things.

"Don't forget you owe me a favor!" Dan said as Todd climbed the
stairs.

We walked Todd and his mom to their car and went out to the pool. I
took off my cutoffs for the second time, and as I stepped out of them,
Dan pushed me into the pool.  He walked around to the diving board and
dove in with his gym shorts on.

I swam under the water to where he was surfacing and yanked his shorts
off of him.  I threw them over the fence, where he would have to run
outside the fence to get them.

"You owe me a favor, too" he said as he pulled on the string of my
Speedos.

* Daniel in the Lion's Den *

Our lives following that first summer of awakening grew in a steady
stream of exploration, continuing through my graduation from high
school.  We never saw anything that we were doing together as wrong
and had no regrets.  We were discrete, more because we knew that if
our friends had discovered us we would be teased, but we suspected
that others were doing the same things.  The thought of being
stigmatized for our relationship never really bothered us, because
what we were doing wasn't really perverse, jus t alot of fun between
friends.  Close friends. Surrogate brothers.  After all it wasn't like
we were queers or anything.  Queers were sissies, and we definitely
were not sissies. Each of us had enough of a social standing in the
community that we would never have been accused being such
degenerates.  In the sheltered teenage life of rural Ohio, fags were
boys that wanted to be girls. We were certainly not that.  We both
immensely enjoyed being boys, especially being boys together.  We were
confirming each o ther's manhood, not denying it.  Although I was
captivated by the nightly ritual of Dan kissing his dad on the lips
before going to bed, the thought of us kissing seemed beyond
consideration.  I would wait ten years to experience kissing another
man, an encounter behind Encina Gym at Stanford that would change my
perception of male attractions forever.

Impulses of the different moments spent with Dan during my high school
years blend together, and the timing of individual nights loses all
order in retrospect.  Watching a basketball game on television in the
den in the basement of Dan's house, with Dan's head resting on my lap.
Teasing each other about the sexual explorations that were by now not
entirely uncharted territory to us.  Developing a personal language of
phases that we could use to insert intimate sexual innuendos in
conversation with other friends so that only Dan and I would know what
we really meant.  Playfully reminding each other of the very different
ways that our bodies were developing: Dan's lean and smooth and
panther-like, mine brawny with flourishing growth on my chest and
legs. Dan would sometimes lie next to me after swimming or football,
when both of us were bare chested, relaxing and absently stroking the
tufted line connecting my chest and my navel, continuing to where it
disappeared in my shorts.  Inevitably, he would end up lying with his
head resting on my chest and I would stroke the lazy black curls that
draped from the back of his head, envying the smooth perfection of the
boy who I admired so completely.

One Saturday, we were alone at my house.  As usual, we started
wrestling on the floor.  We had been watching television, eating our
lunch.

"Could you pass the chips?" Dan asked.  He had been been busy building
a sandwich out of stacks of ham and cheese, while I had been settling
into place on the floor next to him.

"I think you'll have to come get them yourself," I grinned, and I
pushed the chips further away so that he would have to stretch across
me to reach them.  When he stretched across me, I grabbed his sides
and poked, causing a sudden contraction and a giggle.

"Am I going to have to teach you a lesson?" Dan posed, knowing fully
that I outsized him and he could never defeat me in such a contest
without considerable trickery.

He opted for the trickery immediately, reaching to my groin and
grabbing whatever was available.  But I had anticipated the move and
drew up my knees so that I covered myself with my thighs.  Of course,
that left my buttocks exposed, and Dan took the opportunity to pinch a
handful.  The outcome of this match was predictable in many ways, but
I found that wrestling with Dan was alot like a cat toying with a
mouse for pure amusement before settling in for the kill.  Of course,
Dan was fast and tricky, so I still had to have my wits about me or
my prey would escape and I would be left without the spoils of my
conquest.

Through several calculated maneuvers, we exchanged reversals of
positions on the floor.  I would lie on my back with Dan trying to
force my shoulders to the carpet, sometimes getting lost in a daydream
involving the sweaty body that was pressing against me and losing
concentration enough that I would suddenly snap back just before being
pinned.  I launched myself in a surge to role us both over, with me
now on top of Dan, the full weight of my body across is chest.  He
arched his back in two last efforts to resist the pin, then collapsed,
exhausted.

We were both soaked with the persperation of the struggle.  Nearly
satisfied by the contact and competition alone, we each had learned
the intimacy of the body mechanics of the other in a completeness that
only combat could develop.  As I looked at the boy I lay atop, I
realized that he had spent his entire energy in the struggle, and he
was at the same time helpless to defend himself and I saw how
completely he had spent himself to make it a match.  Such valor would
need to be rewarded. Gently I tugged at the drawstring on his sweats.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth.  The same smile I remembered
from the night in the tent years ago.

* The Prodigal Returns *

Finals had ended, followed by graduation and the promise of a new life
in Los Angeles working for an aerospace company.  The drive home from
Columbus left me randomly drifting from nostalgia to thoughts of
adventures that awaited in that strange new world that I had only
encountered on a trip to the Rose Bowl with the Marching Band a year
before.  Columbus had seemed like a fast lifestyle after growing up in
rural Ohio.  If the Rose Bowl trip exposure to Westwood and Hollywood
was any indication, the experiences waiting in Los Angeles were
beyond imagination.

The years I spent in school at Columbus had caused Dan and I to grow
apart. I never really felt comfortable about it, but the attempts that
I had made to try to incorporate Dan into my life in college had
failed miserably.  The single time he visited me at school, he was a
panther in a paved jungle. In high school, Dan made it known early on
that he had no intention of becoming a scholar.  He had always done
well in classes, but it just didn't interest him.  The key to his life
had always been in discoverin g the intricacies of nature on his own.
Truth to Dan could not be proven by logical progression.  It just was.
And it was wretchedly distorted at the university.

We both sensed the drifting, and tried other ways to be close.  But
there was little success.  One summer, Dan helped my father put a new
roof on our house.  I had found an engineering job in Columbus and
couldn't come home to help.  If he couldn't physically be near me, he
could take my role with the family and still be close.  It was a
natural shift.  Dan and I had shared families since that first summer
he moved to the neighborhood.  While I sat at my desk that summer, I
pictured Dan the roof working wit h Dad.  His black hair glistened.
His broad tanned shoulders crouched over his denimed knees, hammering
away in sweltering heat.  Touches of tar on his hands and a black
smear on his forehead, where he had wiped away the sweat.  I longed to
be on the roof with him.  To later take turns kneading the stiffness
in our backs and shoulders.  To take that last refreshing plunge in
his pool after the sunset.

Whenever I did get home, it took forever for us to get acquainted
enough to talk.  Everything in my life in Columbus had been either
engineering or marching band experiences.  For Dan, he had been
working in the Whirlpool factory until he was laid off, then he
started back working at his dad's rootbeer stand.  His free time was
fishing and basketball.  By the time we were comfortable again, it was
always time for me to go back.

Now I could anticipate a weeklong vacation with Dan as he helped me
move west. The uncertainty of how we would be able to handle each
other's changes was compensated by the thought of sleeping together on
the road.  At least I was hoping we would sleep together.  Our plan
was to save some money by only registering me with the hotels along
the way, because my company would reimburse my expenses and not Dan's.
The likelihood of us finding single bed rooms under such a pretense
was high, and I found myself lo nging to feel Dan's warmth in a bed
next to me.

It was actually my mother that was responsible for Dan taking this
trip with me.  She was the one that made such a fuss about me driving
to California alone, and she offered to pay for Dan's return air fare
as part of my graduation present.  Dan was excited.  It was rare for
him to travel outside the state, and he hadn't anticipated any long
trips for some time, because his finances were low.  It was mid-March,
and he hadn't worked since his father's rootbeer stand closed in
October for the winter.

But there was a catch.  During the last 6 months, Dan had started
dating a girl.  I was surprised when I heard about Julie, but it
seemed to be something that occupied most of his thoughts these days.
I saw this as more evidence of us growing up and apart.  Someday, I
assured myself, I would also find a girlfriend, and then Dan and I
would grow further apart.  Or maybe we would become two inseparable
couples.  But that was unlikely with me moving west.

So, would Dan still want to sleep with me on the trip, or had he
outgrown that? I plotted ways to force us to sleep together.  Saving
money was certainly a good ploy.  And one that Dan couldn't argue
with, because he was broke.  So that was my hope.

As I pulled into the driveway at home, I saw Dan out shooting baskets
by himself in his driveway.  There was a dusting of snow still on the
grass. We had had a very late winter that year.  And a very cold one.
It had been a major factor in my decision to move west.  No more ice
and snow.

But Dan was out shooting baskets.  His the hood of his navy sweatshirt
dangled by a last thread.  The shirt had been the victim of a
desparate tackle attempt that fall in the only football game we had
played in years.  The shirt appropriately was matched by baggy navy
sweatpants, torn on the left knee.  As I walked across the road, Dan
waved and turned to sink a jumper.  He grinned to me at his feat, then
gathered the ball for a second shot.  This one missed, hitting on the
rim.  With an agile leap, he took his rebound in for a layup.

"Finally finished?" he asked as he turned to me.

"I guess for now.  Everyone has to leave school and get a job
sometime."

I said it, then was immediately aware of what I had said.  Not only
did I now have a college education, but also a job.  Two things Dan
was without. I knew he had been intimidated by my education, but I
also knew that he had decided early that college was not for him.
There were no deer to hunt with bow and arrow on college campuses.
Life was watching the sunrise over the river while you waited for a
tug on the fishing line.  Life's problems weren't lessened by knowing
the method to solving coupled partia l differential equations.  They
were solved by understanding God and nature and people.

 
I looked at Dan.  Inspite of the 30 degree temperature, there was a
ring of sweat around the ripped collar of his shirt.  And the faint
tracing of it the front and back of his pants.  But his hands were red
with the cold.  I imagined the sting of the basketball against his
fingers when he dribbled, and the tightness across the back of his
hands when he balled them to blow warm air into his fists.

"Ready for a break?" I asked him.

"Yeah, it's getting too dark to see.  I think we can find some hot
chocolate or something in the house."

I nodded, daydreaming about what was in store beginning tomorrow.  

"Think fast!" Dan yelled and I broke my trance.  The basketball was
racing directly for my unsuspecting crotch and it was too late to
move.  It was a trick we had always played on each other when we
discovered someone wasn't paying attention.  It got my attention now.
Fortunately, he had aimed high, and missed his mark.  But I faked
great pain and agony.  I rolled on the driveway pavement.  Dan got
worried and came over.

"You all right?" he bent over me.

I grabbed his shoulder and forced his face to my pants.

"I think you should kiss it and make it better!" I laughed and pulled
him over on top of me.

He just looked at me.  Things had changed.  

Then he grinned.  Maybe they hadn't.

"Let's go in.  I'm freezing" he said and took one last shot at the
basket.

* Riding Into the Sunset *

"You OK? Want me to drive?" Dan asked.

I hated that I had started crying in front of Dan.  I hadn't expected
it, but when my mom teared up as we pulled out of the driveway, I
started myself. I hadn't done this when I went away to college.  Why
should this be a big deal? After all, I was coming back to start my
master's degree in the fall.  I would only be gone for 5 months.  My
vision blurred as wet trails dried on my face.

"No, I'm OK.  I guess this is a bigger thing than I thought."

By the time we got to the interstate and started heading south, I was
back to normal.  Dan had been very quiet the whole time.  I couldn't
tell if he was being quiet to give me my space or because he was
embarrassed by the whole thing.  At any rate, we turned onto I-75
heading south and we were officially bound for California.

The night before, we had spent a couple of hours looking through a
road atlas, planning our route.  We expected that we could reach St.
Louis if we drove a long distance the first day.  We could drive a
considerable stretch in the dark, through Indiana and Illinois.  It
was just farmland like Ohio, anyhow.  Nothing much to see.

Dan had brought his portable tape player and some tapes, since my car
had only an AM radio.  We spent most of the trip south to Dayton and
west to Indianapolis just driving and listening to the tapes.  Mom had
packed a couple days worth of sandwiches for us to eat on the road, so
we could cut the expenses a little.

"Welcome to Illinois, Land of Lincoln" the sign along the interstate
read as the sun was setting behind it.  Probably four hours to St.
Louis and the first night's stop.

"Want to stop and the roadside rest for supper?" I asked?

"Yea, then I can take over driving again."

We could probably have made it to St. Louis in three hours if I
continued to drive.  But Dan was very careful to obey the posted 55
speed limit.  I had noticed that Dan had become very conservative in
the last few years.  He didn't drank alcohol, but had always he said
that was because he never liked the taste.  When I explained that most
people usually acquire a taste for it, he simply said that it seemed
silly to try to acquire a taste for something that wasn't there
already.

We pulled over to the roadside rest.  First priority was a trip to the
restroom. We stood at adjacent urinals to relieve ourselves.  I peeked
over the divider to watch Dan's progress, but he was done.  I winked
at him as he buttoned his fly, but he must have missed it.  He washed
his hands and walked outside to wait.  As the sun's rim went behind
the horizon, we sat at a picnic table eating ham and cheese sandwiches
and drinking iced tea, watching an elderly couple pack up their
Winnebago.

"That would be the life.  Just driving around the country, seeing
sights, stopping to sleep whenever you get tired." I said, mostly for
something to break the silence.

 
"I'd rather sleep in a tent or under the stars than in one of those
rolling hotels," Dan replied.

I thought of the night in the tent years ago, and subsequent nights in
tents many times the next few summers.

"Want to do that next summer?" I asked.  "I should finish my master's
in the spring and I could probably take a leave of absence from work
for a month to go on vacation."

"Hopefully, I'll have a job by then.  If I do, I probably wouldn't be
able to get any time off."

All of our conversations had been like this since we left home.  I
would start something, mostly to get a conversation rolling, and Dan
would promptly kill the conversation.

"Finished eating?" I asked.  Dan nodded and started packing the
remaining sandwiches in the cooler.  We each took a last drink of iced
tea and packed the car.  We were on the road again, with Dan behind
the wheel.

I sat sideways on the seat with my back to the door.  It was dark now,
and Dan's face was illuminated by the green dash light.  He looked
intently at the road and the traffic along the highway.  The Doobie
Brothers tape had just finished, and the car was swallowed in silence.
The toes at the end of my scissored legs kneaded gently into the side
of Dan's thigh just below his hip. I watched closely to see if there
was any indication of a reaction from the driver.  Memories of a trip
four years ago to a porn drive-in movie flooded my head.  Dan had
turned 18 that winter, and when I came home for spring break we were
looking for things to entertain us.  We looked through the movie guide
in the newspaper, finding nothing of interest, when Dan suggested that
we should go see a porn film.  Neither of us had ever been to one, so
it was decided.

The movie had turned out to be plotless and dull, so I had kicked off
my shoes, sat sideways on the seat bench in the enormous Buick and
rested my feet on Dan's lap.  When I moved to get more comfortable, my
toes brushed against the bulge in his lap.  He was erect.  It
certainly hadn't been what was happening on the screen.  He had
propped his head back on the head rest and closed his eyes.  I gently
pushed at the bulge with my toes.  Kneading and caressing. Feeling him
push out against my foot.  He adjuste d himself in his seat behind the
steering wheel and undid his fly.  I reached under the waistband of
his underwear and pulled the waistband down over the protruding mass.
Dan smiled. The same smile I had seen many times.  We had been forced
back to reality when the guy in the car next to us got out to go to
the bathroom.  We decided to go home and not stay for the end of the
film.

But now I sat sideways in the front seat of my car.  I didn't know if
it was safe to continue.  So many things had changed between us.  I
would have to be content for now just drifting on old memories until I
could figure it out.

"There's something that I wanted to tell you last night, but I could
never find a good time for it," Dan broke the silence and my reverie.
He paused to gather a breath.  "Julie and I are getting married this
summer."

That was it.  That was the change.  I resented her already and I had
never even met her.

"Tying the knot, huh? I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.
When is the wedding?"

"This July.  The 22nd.  I'd like you to be in the wedding, but I don't
know if you can make it since you're moving to California."

"I can do it.  I want to be in your wedding."

"Todd's coming back for it.  Kelly is going to be best man.  You and
Todd and Rod are going to be ushers, I guess."

"Todd'd coming back? Where is he?"

"He moved to Texas last fall.  He got a job in Austin working for a
newspaper for Campus Life."

That was a revelation.  Todd was working for a newspaper for a
Christian student organization.  I imagined Todd surrounded by cattle
ranch hands and oil riggers. That I could picture more readily than
the production staff of a religious newspaper.

We talked some more about Julie and the wedding.  I found out that Dan
had known her for about two years and had actually been dating for a
year, not the six months I had thought.

The car grew quiet as I digested the news.  I had always wanted to be
like Dan. Athletic without being a real jock-ish sort.  Assured of
himself.  Willing to be different if that was truly what he was.  And
beautiful.  I had grown into many of those things myself.  When I went
to school, my body began to mature and suddenly athletic skills came
with coordination.  I knew where I wanted to take my life, and I was
taking a major step in that direction with this trip.  Different?
Well, I had actually picked up that one early on.  I cherished being
different from the first step I took on campus at OSU.  Beautiful?
Well, all I knew is that I liked the way I looked now better than I
did in high school.  Maybe I wasn't beautiful, but I was comfortable.
Now he had beaten me at my real trouble.  Girls.  I had failed
miserably at every attempt.  And there had only been three.  I could
accept that as long as Dan wasn't dating either.  We could be bachelor
buddies for the rest of our live s for all I cared. I rationalize d my
lack of success with lack of exposure.  I lived in an all male dorm --
one of only two on campus.  My major social activity was the marching
band -- 90 per cent guys, a throwback to the old military days. And I
majored in engineering! I just needed opportunities.  There had to be
a million of then waiting in Los Angeles.

We reached St. Louis and stopped at the first motel, both exhausted
from the drive.  We followed the plan, where I checked in as a single
occupant, while Dan waited in the car.  When we got to the room, there
were two double beds.  Without much talk, we each chose a bed and
drifted to sleep.  The next morning I woke early and hit the shower
first.  When I came out of the shower, Dan stretched and got out of
bed, showing an ample amount of arousal through his white cotton
briefs.

"Nothing like getting up in the morning," I winked.  He grinned and
when to the shower and closed the door.

We were on the road again after breakfast in the restaurant next door.
We had decided to switch to I-40 through Texas, New Mexico and Arizona
to avoid the chance of snow on the northern route through Colorado. It
was still March, and we had hopes of getting to LA with enough time to
see Disneyland and other tourist sights before Dan had to fly home.

Our only excursion was to the Grand Canyon.  We arrived at the rim
just before sunset, pulling off at viewing points to take pictures.
This by far was the most natural setting I had every seen for Dan. His
brown skin and black hair called out to the reds, oranges and yellows
of the gorge beneath us, "Here is your son, he has returned to you."

We discussed the possibility of a trip to Las Vegas from there, but
there was a storm headed our way, and the weather people were
predicting snow around the Grand Canyon, so be decided to head on.  We
chose to drive through the night in the California desert and stop at
Barstow to sleep during the day.  When we got to Barstow, we found a
Motel-6, waited until after the checkin time in the afternoon, and
slept for a few hours.  The one time we had shared a bed on the trip
had been in Santa Fe.  I hadn't slep t at all that night, and I doubt
that Dan had either.  I was afraid that I would start something and
embarrass myself to find out that Dan wasn't interested anymore.  How
could he be? He was getting married in just a few months.

We both woke up from our naps around 6 in the evening.  The sun had
just disappeared, and a twilight sky bursting with the stars of the
desert glittered overhead.  There was a pool in this complex, and we
decided to go for a swim before supper.  The cool of the water felt
refreshing in the dusty hot air.  It had been ages since I had been
swimming with Dan.  We splashed around a bit, raced a few laps, then I
glanced around, noting no one in sight.  I reached beneath the water
and tugged on the drawstring of my suit. Off it came.  Now Dan's sense
of adventure gleamed in his eyes.  Skinny dipping in a public pool. In
no time, he had joined me.  Fortunately, the underwater lights hadn't
been turned on yet.  I swam under him and grabbed at his ankles,
pulling him under water.  He replied by wrapping his thighs around my
neck and suddenly I found the object of my longing staring me directly
in the face.  I plunged it briefly into my mouth as a tease, and
released to surface for air.  Just as I surfaced to gulp so me air,
Dan grabbed my waist and hauled me under, tickling me devilishly in
the ribs.  We hadn't played like this in years.  We wrestled in the
water, ending up with me holding him face to face, my arms around his.
We were both hard.  He poked my sides and I released him out of reflex
as he swam to the side to put on his suit and quickly hauled himself
out of the water and dried. Silently, we returned to the room,
showered and went to dinner.

The next day we descended on Los Angeles from the east.  The extent of
the sprawl amazed us both.  We had planned to get the eastern edge of
the basin around 10 that morning to avoid rush hour traffic, only to
find all four lanes of the freeway in our direction packed and
creeping along.  Two hours later, we were in Redondo Beach, checking
into our hotel.  We didn't even bother to unpack before we went to
explore the beach.  When we hit the water, we were suddenly aware of
the reason there were few people a t the beach.  The water was a cool
61 degrees.  It didn't take long to decide to go back to the hotel and
start looking for apartments.

As we looked through the newspaper, we selected the "reasonably
priced" places in the $350 -- 450 range.  When we inspected these, we
saw slums and cockroaches, peeling paint and worse.  Back to the
newspaper.  Just to see what it would be like to squander my newly
found wealth, we went to look at an apartment with tennis courts,
pools, health spas and jacuzzis.

"Are you looking for a two bedroom apartment?" the woman asked us when
we showed up to see the apartment.

"No, a studio or one bedroom." I replied.  She looked me over, then
Dan. Suddenly I got the idea, and blushed.

"Oh, it's only for me."

"Well, we have a policy that if guests stay longer than two days, you
have pay an extra $10 a day.  We don't allow anyone under 18 to be
around the social hall or the pool areas without an adult.  We have a
tennis pro that gives free group lessons at 9:00 on Saturday mornings,
and on Fridays there is a complimentary happy hour at 7:00.  Sunday we
have a barbecue for dinner where the residents bring meat to grill and
the complex provides a baked potato and salad.  We try to encourage
mixing and social event s as much as possible. We get a lot of people
that have just relocated and are wanting to meet others."

That was certainly me! I needed to meet someone, have a passionate
romance, and get married to keep up with Dan.  I'd show him that I
could grow up, too. We walked up to see a studio that featured a bed
that slid under a set of dressers to make a couch, dormitory style.
That was not what I had in mind for living in the lap of luxury on my
new earnings.  She took us to the one bedroom, and left us there to
talk.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked Dan.  He was clearly amazed, both
at the cost of the apartment and the nature of the extras that came
with it.

"I think that I'd like you to take the studio and I'll move in and be
your houseboy or something.  That way we can both take advantage of
the health club and pools."

It floored me.  Did he mean this? How could he play such a mean trick
on me even to suggest such a thing. It would be workable.  I could
afford the place one my own, even the one bedroom apartment.  Dan
didn't have a job back home, so he wouldn't be much worse off here.
But what about Julie and getting married? He had to be joking.  I
looked at him and he winked.

"I think I am going to take it.  It would be a good way for me to meet
some people out here.  It's not far from the beach, if the water ever
warms up."

"It sure is a lot of money, though."

That was it.  I had decided on taking the apartment.  But it would be
a week before the rest of my things arrived from Ohio, and I couldn't
move in for three days anyhow.  Dan had two days left before he had to
fly home, so we took one day at Disneyland and the second at Universal
Studios.  After the studio tour, we had dinner at the Victoria Station
overlooking the San Fernando Valley.  This had been a trip of sunsets,
and this was the most stunning of all with the twinkling lights of the
valley coming ali ve as the oranges and maroons dashed across the
mountains in the west.

"I'm going to miss you when you leave."

"I know, I'm going to miss you too.  It doesn't seem real, leaving you
here like this.  I guess you've outgrown me and Ohio."

I wanted to scream.  I wanted to tell him that it was he who had
outgrown me. He was the one getting married.  I was alone in a foreign
land.

"Will you come back to visit?" I asked.

"I'd like to if I ever get the money."

"You're getting married.  Pretty soon you'll have kids.  You'll never
have the money."

"You'll be back some day.  You'll get tired of this after awhile.  I
know. You're really a farmboy.  And this is no place for farmboys."

"I don't know.  Maybe I'll meet the love of my life at my new
apartment complex."

We continued the benign teasing back and forth through dessert, and
headed back to the hotel, amazed at how a freeway with five lanes
going each way could be stop and go at 10:00 at night.  He left the
next day on a morning flight.  We started to shake hands at the
terminal gate, and ended up holding each other in a long hug.  Tears
streamed down my cheeks, and I buried them in the back of his denim
jacket so that he wouldn't know.  They announced the final boarding
call, and we released each other.  There were tears on his face, too.
How could I ever meet another? The after Dan's flight took off, I went
to my new office for orientation.  Words were spoken and read, forms
were signed, but they didn't matter.  He had left me alone here.  And
he would have been my houseboy.